Back in January, when we made plans to come to Texas for February, we thought we’d meander home by going up through the state and visiting friends in the Dallas/FortWorth area. But after looking at weather forecasts with even more cold and wet on its way, we decided we were done with this crazy weather. Time to high-tail it back to the warm sunshine of Arizona that our friends have been experiencing since we left.

Tom planned the most southernly route possible back to Salome so we can catch up with friends at Snowbird West before moving through California to see friends and family on our way back “home” to Oregon.

Our first day of travel took us almost three-hundred miles east and we left the rain in the rear-view mirror. I know we probably won’t be back to Texas in the near future, but I still made a mental note of places it would be nice to stop at as I watched them pass by in the window. We saw this ginormous statue from the highway and I looked it up to find that it’s the Stephen F. Austin-Munson Historical County Park.

As we took highway 90 out of San Antonio, I was very happy to remember the great time we spent there and seeing the Tower of the Americas brought back happy memories that were blogged about here.

We planned on staying overnight at a rest stop. One thing about traveling through Texas: They have nice pull outs and picnic areas and they allow 24 hour parking. Instead, we ended up at a Walmart in Hondo which was nice and quiet.

I remembered that I wanted to find an HEB before we left the state. That is the big grocery chain only in Texas, and they have a couple of products I haven’t found anywhere else. The last one going west was in Uvalde, not far from where we over-nighted. So Tom indulged me and stopped. Unfortunately I didn’t find what I wanted, but I did pick up this epicurean treat as a final souvenir.

Unfortunately I didn’t find what I wanted, but I did pick up this epicurean treat for the drive.

Tom put in another long drive day at 350 miles, fighting another windy drive, and taking us to an overnight in a narrow parking lot at the Marfa lights viewing area. It was so cold! We bundled up and went out to the viewing area after dark and I was surprised how many people were out. After getting the binoculars, we did see lights. It wasn’t spectacular, but interesting.

It’s curious to me that so much money went into a viewing area for an unexplained phenomena. They have several plaques around and here are a couple:

We woke up to sunny blue skies, and took a couple of side streets through Marfa, which looks like it might have been a quite the town back in the day. They have a beautiful courthouse. One thing about long driving days – we go through the diesel a lot faster.

We continued east on Highway 90. Tom had his first enjoyable drive with no traffic and no wind. Plus a short drive day at 200 miles. It’s a great alternative to traveling on I-10 and has a lot of quirky roadside attractions. In the middle of nothingness.

Like these weird random cutouts, complete with solar-powered music playing for….anybody like me who stops to take pictures I guess!
We were the only ones around for miles…and miles!

Then there’s the infamous Prada store, which is actually “art”. Right there along the highway – nothing else around as far as you could see. Those are real 2005 Prada handbags and shoes inside – which makes me think it’s really thick glass!

Tom booked our next overnight stay at a Harvest Host just south of El Paso. Licon Dairy in Socorro was a little hard to get to with narrow roads and no shoulders, but the parking was great and it was nice to be level and have all our slides out!

The owners were super friendly and gave us free reign to roam around their interesting property with their extensive petting zoo/exotics farm.

We had a lot of fun strolling around their pond and watching all the animals. (The dairy cow was a stuffed one inside their store!)

The birds all put on quite a display for us!

We were off to a rocky start the next morning. The weather forecast was for headwinds all the way into Arizona so Tom wanted an early start. I had to box up fairies and find a Post Office which took us on some narrow roads and a dip that nearly took out our hitch in back. I also didn’t foresee that the post office was on a dead-end road and we had to quickly unhitch the Jeep to get the rig turned around (with people waiting of course). Such is RV travel.

Again. we drove through New Mexico without stopping at all.

Now we are headed to Tuscon to stay at a Boondockers Welcome site. Tom booked us two days there so we would have time to meet up with Jessica. We are happy to be back to a warmer and still sunny Arizona.

Happy Travels!

Peace & Love, Joy